RORY McIlroy created {golfing} historical past together with his win on the 2025 US Masters, the Irishman turning into simply the sixth participant to finish {the golfing} Grand Slam.
In including a Masters title to his already spectacular resume, McIlroy has now received all 4 of golf’s main championships, becoming a member of an illustrious group which incorporates Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen and Gary Participant.
On an thrilling Sunday at Augusta, the stress on McIlroy to say a inexperienced jacket to go together with his US Open victory of 2011, his two PGA Championship titles (2012 and 2014) and his Open Championship triumph at Hoylake in 2014, was evident for all to see.
A double bogey on the par 4 opening gap was a setback, McIlroy giving up the result in Bryson DeChambeau by the second gap, earlier than bouncing again and retaking the highest spot with birdies on three and 4.
Additional birdies on 9 and 10 and all indicators pointed to a again 9 victory march, nonetheless a tremendous again 9 surge by Justin Rose, coupled with an unpleasant double bogey seven from McIlroy on 13, arrange a tense end.
McIlroy put himself within the driver’s seat with a surprising shot in making a birdie on the fifteenth after which with a exceptional three on 17, earlier than he misssed the 18th inexperienced together with his wedge method. McIlroy would splash out of the bunker to 6 ft, however including to the drama {the golfing} world winced when the putt for the win was low and left.
With Rose closing with a scorching 66, tying McIlroy on 11-under, the pair returned to 18 to resolve a winner.
Once more, when many thought nerves and the expectation might mix to get the higher of him, McIlroy responded, this time his hole wedge from 115 metres spun again down the slope to inside a metre of the opening. When Rose’s three-metre birdie try slid by, McIlroy nervously dribbled his putt into the opening to say his first inexperienced jacket.
The win got here 10 years and eight months after his earlier main championship success and as expressed by lead TV analyst Jim Nance when the successful putt fell into the opening, ‘McIlroy completes a masterpiece’.
US Masters notes
• The McIlroy-Rose playoff was the 18th in Masters historical past
• Justin Rose joined Ben Hogan (1942, 1954) as the one participant to lose two playoffs on the US Masters. Sergio Garcia defeated Rose on the primary playoff gap in 2017.
• Whereas his first Masters Match victory, it was McIlroy’s fifth main championship and twenty ninth PGA TOUR title, coming in his 263rd PGA TOUR begin aged 35 years, 11 months, 9 days
• A fifth main championship victory has McIlroy tied with Seve Ballesteros, James Braid, Brooks Koepka, Byron Nelson, J. Taylor and Peter Thomson for fifteenth all-time
• It was McIlroy’s seventeenth Masters look, marking the second-most makes an attempt to earn a primary Masters title. Sergio Garcia received the 2017 Masters in nineteenth begin
• Joins Nick Faldo (1990) as solely gamers to win the Masters with double bogey or worse on first gap of ultimate spherical
• First participant from Northern Eire to win the Masters; thirteenth totally different nation with not less than one Masters champion
• World primary Scottie Scheffler (tied 4th) information fourth consecutive top-10 end on the Masters (Gained/2024, T10/2023, Gained/2022)
Aussies at Augusta
In and across the main group for a lot of the week, Jason Day put up a spirited efficiency on the US Masters, scores of 70-70-71-72 for a five-under par whole seeing him end in a tie for eighth.
Day was actually the shining gentle, with Min Woo Lee the one different Australian amongst the five-strong contingent to make the 36-hole reduce.
Lee started the week with a one-under 71, earlier than following up with scores of 72-77 and 74 to complete in forty ninth at four-over.
Cameron Smith and former Masters champ Adam Scott had been three photographs outdoors the reduce line at five-over, whereas Cam Davis returned rounds of 74-79 to be nine-over for the primary 36-holes.
